Katherine "Kat" Teller

he doesn't answer at first, simply remains in the doorway watching the youngest of the teller kids. the little princess among the reapers.

they haven't been out long this time around, only a few weeks. jax, chibs, and himself. one brother short and the void feeling so deep for it. opie's in the ground and it's another winston whose like he's responsible for taking. he might not have pulled the trigger on opie, but he's the reason the man is dead. and the reason kat's suffering.

there's nothing he can say that'll take that hurt away. it should have been him in that room and part of him hates opie for playing the god damn hero. at least if he died, he could be with dawnie again.

It had always been the three of them -- her, Jax, and Opie. Where one went, the other two were sure to follow. To say the Winston boy had been their best friend would have been a gross understatement. He was Jax's brother. And Kat's...

Kat would never love anyone the way she loved him. He had been her first kiss. And her second. (The first having been when she was six and the second having been when she was fourteen and he was walking her home after seeing Batman Returns). It was into Opie's chest that she cried when they lost Thomas. And then again when they lost JT. It had been Opie who kept vigil with Jax when Kat's destructive downward spiral ended in an accidental overdose. And it had been Kat, not Opie's wife, who made the drive to Chino most weekends. Visiting him.

Through every major event -- good or bad -- Opie had been there. And now...

Now both twins had lost their anchor. For Jax that meant a descent into violence. A brutal sense of justice. For Kat... Well, they all remembered what she had been like after JT's death. It was the whole reason Chibs and the others had been watching her. Keeping tabs.

They were all waiting for the other shoe to drop.

So far, though, their little Kitty Kat seemed mostly numb. She passed the bottle back to Tig, her gaze on Opie's bike. Never to be ridden again.